Halloween is Nigh

My personal pumpkin sculptor was invited to carve out today's blip, and a fine job he made of it despite the fact, or maybe because of it none of this beer was consumed beforehand.
Now Padraig the pumpkin's insides are boiling to a manageable softness in readiness for a pumpkin pie to be made tomorrow and his seeds roasting in the oven.

It never fails to impress me how the customs of the land across the pond have overtaken our British ones.
Gone are the impossibly hard to carve good old British turnips with the nostalgic smell of their charred insides after the stumpy candle ( no delicate tea lights in the old days) had been burning for a time, and in their place the exotic big orange pumpkins, so much easier to carve but so unfamiliar to us bus pass holders.

Gone is the Scottish ritual of guising at Halloween, carrying the lit turnip lantern round the neighbouring doors, reciting or singing for a reward of sweets or nuts.

Now we have Trick or Treating, where the reward preferred is hard cash and the children's father stands as banker and security guard just out of sight.
Ah the good old days when such simple childhood rituals were not driven by nasty commercialism.........

A cynic? No not I, I wouldn't dare.